Single thread - New website issues and discussions

[dfish]

I received the message about not being able to contact the server earlier today. I am now able to log in and go to my itinerary. It appears that I am going from the new website to my itinerary on the old website. Anyone else notice this?

[3rdGenCunarder]

I received the message about not being able to contact the server earlier today. I am now able to log in and go to my itinerary. It appears that I am going from the new website to my itinerary on the old website. Anyone else notice this?

 

Yes. My itinerary is definitely coming up on the old site. And if I go to purchase tours, they're the old descriptions, complete with reviews.

[bUU]

Confirmed that both the front portion of the website (PLAN, WHERE WE GO, THE EXPERIENCE, DEALS), which are the portions that got the new website design, all up and running fine here in the South. ALREADY BOOKED also working fine, MY DETAILS, MY BOOKINGS, MY MARINER STATUS. The MANAGE PAYMENTS looks good. MANAGE MY CRUISE continues to be unchanged, still working exactly as it has for years. Same with CHECK-IN.

[VennDiagram]

Unable to do a booking...says your session has expired ..sign in again:(:(

 

Exactly that is happening to me, as well. A friend was able to get further in, but couldn't get information for any specific categories of verandah cabin. (And very strange -- the price SHE saw was different than the price I saw....) I am fairly certain HAL has lost any chance to get her to book that specific cruise, since it sails in a week :eek:

[OlsSalt]

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

All I wanted was to quickly find my pre-chosen cabin number for our upcoming cruise and the deck plan for the Zaandam. I was 100% unsuccessful. It took dozens of keystrokes and multiple new sign-ins and I got absolutely nowhere. Drowning in visual garbage while traversing an arid desert of practical information. I must have missed the road signs to this basic, basic, basic information.

 

Yes, I gave them "feedback" and I tried to be as specific as I could be, instead of just telling them globally this new website remains a total nightmare.

[canadianbear]

I got so frustrated the other day as I was trying to do a "mock" booking and check out availability for Neptune suite. Got fed up and just asked my TA to do it. I'm used to basically doing everything first then telling her what to book. I did the feedback, again, on the HAL site-that part was easy.

[Crazy For Cats]

I finally received an response to my issues with my booking.

 

 

"Thank you for contacting us about this issue. We were able to verify the items that you have selected or purchased previously will display in your itinerary only if you are logged into the website with your My Account login credentials. Please log into your My Account to access your itinerary and you will be able to see any excursion that you booked previously. Please let us know if you continue to have a problem with this."

Technical Support

This is my response:

Good Morning,

Thank you for responding. I do understand how to log into my account and manage bookings. Not my first cruise.

I tried three different browsers accessing the new web site (Chrome, Edge and Safari) and can not see my purchases on my itinerary. Please understand that I DO see them using the old web site. I would assume that this is not user error but rather a glitch in your system.

I have a final payment coming up on the first of three cruises and I really need to have confidence that everything that is booked will be provided when I board the Rotterdam for a two week vacation. I do not want to have any issues and deal with the front desk trying to get what I paid for ahead of time.

Please review this again.

 

 

 

 

I did forget to mention that I used three different devices trying to access the information. Again, all appears on the old web site.

[DaveOKC]

I got so frustrated the other day as I was trying to do a "mock" booking and check out availability for Neptune suite. Got fed up and just asked my TA to do it. I'm used to basically doing everything first then telling her what to book. I did the feedback, again, on the HAL site-that part was easy.

 

IMO, this is one of the biggest shortcomings of the new site - when looking for a cruise, it does not show you the fares for each category (like the old site did), it only shows Insides pricing. I like to sail in certain categories, an the new site makes it very cumbersome to compare different sailings on a specific itinerary.

 

GO BACK to the old site HAL!!

[3rdGenCunarder]

I finally received an response to my issues with my booking.

 

 

"Thank you for contacting us about this issue. We were able to verify the items that you have selected or purchased previously will display in your itinerary only if you are logged into the website with your My Account login credentials. Please log into your My Account to access your itinerary and you will be able to see any excursion that you booked previously. Please let us know if you continue to have a problem with this."

 

Technical Support

This is my response:

Good Morning,

Thank you for responding. I do understand how to log into my account and manage bookings. Not my first cruise.

I tried three different browsers accessing the new web site (Chrome, Edge and Safari) and can not see my purchases on my itinerary. Please understand that I DO see them using the old web site. I would assume that this is not user error but rather a glitch in your system.

I have a final payment coming up on the first of three cruises and I really need to have confidence that everything that is booked will be provided when I board the Rotterdam for a two week vacation. I do not want to have any issues and deal with the front desk trying to get what I paid for ahead of time.

Please review this again.

 

 

 

 

I did forget to mention that I used three different devices trying to access the information. Again, all appears on the old web site.

 

Well, that answer was useless! Of course you can't see your itinerary without logging in--IIRC, you said you could see the itinerary but the tours were missing. So the assumption that you hadn't signed in makes me wonder if their techs even know how the website works.

 

I think the fact that all appears on the old site means you'll be OK. But as the saying goes, trust but verify. (Maybe in this case it should be mistrust and verify)

[Crazy For Cats]

You are correct. I can view my itinerary but the excursions etc that I have already purchased do not appear. Over the weekend, when making a payment during the server down time, the rep on the phone could see everything except items purchased. Not a confidence builder.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[dfish]

Not able to log in on the new site. I enter my information and and click login, but I just get the blank form back. I can log in on the old site.

[bUU]

I just had to review my Check-in info. I was able to log in readily, and skip quickly to the Onboard Account page of Check-in to verify that I had the correct credit card on file.

[Archipelago]

Nope not able to login ...........

[Haboob]

Nope not able to login ...........

 

Whenever I hear "I can't logon" / "Well, I can", I wonder if it is an ISP routing issue (while DNS

servers propagate URL changes -- which can take 24 hours).

[KroozNut]

I will go back to my operator error post a while back. If you're savvy enough to navigate the new site, all is good and there are no issues.

[canadarocks]

Received an email today asking me to complete a survey about the new website. Just did it and expressed my hope that HAL either fixes the current mess of a site, or returns to the old one. I explained that I have already cancelled our 2019 HAL cruise because of the new website issues, and I have rebooked with another cruise line.

 

We have been HAL cruisers since 2009 and we're very close to becoming 4-star mariners. So I also said that I would check back with HAL before we make our 2020 cruise plans, with hopes that by then the website will be fixed.

 

I can only imagine how much business they must be losing right now.

[thinfool]

The old site was not broken...so why did they expend their resources to fix it?

 

I sent them an email about it and suggested they send their IT people over to help Princess with the Ocean Medallion program. It really does need fixing.

[Haboob]

The old site was not broken...so why did they expend their resources to fix it?

 

I sent them an email about it and suggested they send their IT people over to help Princess with the Ocean Medallion program. It really does need fixing.

 

 

Psst! Ocean Medallion's main problem is a hardware issue (your medallion --i.e. you-- aren't

always where the sensors claim it is). Tough to fix that in software.

[bUU]

...so why did they expend their resources to fix it?

The old website was horrendous on smartphones and small tablets. Being able to market your products and services to those researching their vacations on devices with modern form-factors is critical for the future of today's businesses. It is not just a matter of reaching the target market, the 18-35 age demographic, but also a matter of reaching others who don't know much about your brand and are using the Internet to research their vacation options. Those customers are the future of the cruise line's customer base, but more importantly will likely disproportionately represent the future of the cruise line's revenue stream.

 

The cruise line doesn't count how many times you cruise with them, something which many passengers seem to think matters. Instead, the cruise line counts how many more dollars you spend as compared to the number of dollars you cost them in terms of cost of service. That's why you'll see companies deliberately show some lower profit customer the door through both obvious and non-obvious means. (The best recent example of this was when AT&T announced in 2012 that it was going to turn off GSM radios nationwide, effectively ending service then used by 8.4 million customers. AT&T's profit margin is roughly 19.25%, so they evidently know what they're doing.)

 

However, reaching the customers you really want to reach is only part of it. It is also a matter of reaching customers at all. Google factors how well a website works on modern, mobile device form-factors into its search results. In other words, if someone searches for "Caribbean cruise" what comes up first is Royal Caribbean, because they changed their website to serve modern, mobile device form-factors a while ago. Google accounts for over 5.7 billion searches conducted on the web daily. Changing your website to satisfy Google's standards (which is part of what SEO is) is critical to successful business today.

 

This underscores the point that the website's main purpose is to sell new customers on the cruise line. Whatever the website offers to returning passengers it does so as a secondary consideration. Returning passengers already have preconceived notions about what cruise line they want to be on, and those preconceived notions will matter more than the website. Only a very few people would care more about the cruise line's website rather than whether the service staff treated them well on their last cruise.

 

What we're seeing in this thread are complaints, but what is really important to the cruise line are purchasing decisions: For new customers, the website is going to matter, and the website is going to tell them the story that the cruise line wants to tell them. They're likely not going to care about what's no longer there because they won't know. For returning passengers, they're going to choose the cruise line again or not based mostly on their last experience on-board rather than anything as trivial as the website.

[dfish]

Still not working for me. I did send feedback and asked for an answer. I do think I know how to click on log in/register. I also know which is log in and which is register. And, I know how to enter my information as it is the same information I enter on the old site and it works there.

 

The pages are not displaying properly. There is overwriting on the upper left hand corner of the home page and on the log in page, the top half is hidden under the top banner. No, I can't move it down using the slide at the right hand side.

[thinfool]

The old website was horrendous on smartphones and small tablets.

 

Point taken...but can you comment on why, if this is truly the issue, have they not put their efforts into building an app?

 

As I write this I cannot bring to mind any major cruise line that has an app available.

[bUU]

Point taken...but can you comment on why, if this is truly the issue, have they not put their efforts into building an app? As I write this I cannot bring to mind any major cruise line that has an app available.

Customers use search engines and web browsers to research purchases.

 

Apps are good for engaging with customers *while* they are consuming your service. Even then, the trend is *away* from apps and toward web applications. Apps have to be packaged and deployed for different mobile platforms. New web technology, such as html5, makes it possible to develop engagement apps as web applications that run just as well regardless of platform and with no complications associated with getting then into the various app stores, no stragglers with regard to upgrading, etc.

 

 

 

This message may have been entered via voice recognition. Please excuse any typos.

[OlsSalt]

The old website was horrendous on smartphones and small tablets. Being able to market your products and services to those researching their vacations on devices with modern form-factors is critical for the future of today's businesses. It is not just a matter of reaching the target market, the 18-35 age demographic, but also a matter of reaching others who don't know much about your brand and are using the Internet to research their vacation options. Those customers are the future of the cruise line's customer base, but more importantly will likely disproportionately represent the future of the cruise line's revenue stream.

 

The cruise line doesn't count how many times you cruise with them, something which many passengers seem to think matters. Instead, the cruise line counts how many more dollars you spend as compared to the number of dollars you cost them in terms of cost of service. That's why you'll see companies deliberately show some lower profit customer the door through both obvious and non-obvious means. (The best recent example of this was when AT&T announced in 2012 that it was going to turn off GSM radios nationwide, effectively ending service then used by 8.4 million customers. AT&T's profit margin is roughly 19.25%, so they evidently know what they're doing.)

 

However, reaching the customers you really want to reach is only part of it. It is also a matter of reaching customers at all. Google factors how well a website works on modern, mobile device form-factors into its search results. In other words, if someone searches for "Caribbean cruise" what comes up first is Royal Caribbean, because they changed their website to serve modern, mobile device form-factors a while ago. Google accounts for over 5.7 billion searches conducted on the web daily. Changing your website to satisfy Google's standards (which is part of what SEO is) is critical to successful business today.

 

This underscores the point that the website's main purpose is to sell new customers on the cruise line. Whatever the website offers to returning passengers it does so as a secondary consideration. Returning passengers already have preconceived notions about what cruise line they want to be on, and those preconceived notions will matter more than the website. Only a very few people would care more about the cruise line's website rather than whether the service staff treated them well on their last cruise.

 

What we're seeing in this thread are complaints, but what is really important to the cruise line are purchasing decisions: For new customers, the website is going to matter, and the website is going to tell them the story that the cruise line wants to tell them. They're likely not going to care about what's no longer there because they won't know. For returning passengers, they're going to choose the cruise line again or not based mostly on their last experience on-board rather than anything as trivial as the website.

 

One word with all due respect - balderdash.

[taxmantoo]

One word with all due respect - balderdash.

Even that is giving it too much importance ;p You are much more polite than I would have been.

[bUU]

One word with all due respect - balderdash.

I'm sorry that the reality of today's consumer marketplace displeases you so much so to deny it. As it is, I had an accurate and respectful answer to the poster's explicit question: you did not.

 

This message may have been entered via voice recognition. Please excuse any typos.